by tezza » Sun Jan 01, 2017 9:53 am
Yea. Here's my take on it (I also posted this on VCF)
I feel with a question like this (which depends so much on the definitions of "cool" and "computing") the answer is always "It depends..." (:
Computer technology is now embedded so much of daily life that it's just a tool for a task. It's so reliable, so pervasive, standardized, relatively inexpensive and often so easy to use the technology just fades into the background. Consequently our mind is wholly occupied with the task at hand (getting information, communicating, number crunching etc. ) and barely thinks about the underlying technology enabling it. In this way (unless you really stop to think about it) it's not novel or interesting (per sae) and so it is not "cool" (as to be "cool" needs a point of difference from the usual and mundane).
Back when computers were novel and expensive (and rare) they WERE cool as things could be done far easily and efficiently compared to the default at the time (e.g. writing, record keeping, data manipulation, (and later...) communication, information seeking). So there was a WOW factor. Also, because you could understand them right down to the hardware, you could program them, hack the hardware and get them to do all kind of things..even things the original designers didn't even conceive. Hence they were a creative outlet for those with that kind of technical bent. This was fun!
Games were relatively simple, easy to learn and one person could create a game that many would end up playing without those players having to have an account online. That was also fun, and very different to commercial video games today.
The fun and cool and computing still exists though, and IMO it is in the retro-computing hobby (collecting, maintaining, documenting, extending) and the "maker" movement where people are being creative with cheap inexpensive devices like raspberry Pis and audinos. Sometimes